2 suspected 'pill mills' shut down

Wednesday

Sep 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 15, 2012 at 12:05 PM

ANNE GEGGIS, Staff writer

PORT ORANGE -- Law enforcement officials closed two suspected "pill mills" in Volusia County on Tuesday, arresting two doctors on charges of prescribing vast amounts of narcotic painkillers and executing a search warrant on a third.

Federal, state and local law enforcement officials searched the Port Orange office and home of Dr. Ataur Rahman as state officials suspended his medical license with an emergency order Tuesday.

Two other doctors were arrested in West Volusia -- Dr. Ralph Chambers, 61, of Sanford and his office manager Dr. Neil Stringer, 51, of Naples -- along with seven patients for activities at Orange City and Sanford clinics, police announced Tuesday.

The investigations are separate but the habits of doctors Rahman and Chambers followed the same pattern, according to police and state documents describing their practices. The two prescribed large amounts of powerful painkillers, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, sometimes without even examining patients first, police said.

Looking at records from just two pharmacies in a three-month period, law enforcement officials found Chambers was responsible for prescribing 190,000 pills, most of them oxycodone, a highly addictive opioid, police said. A pharmacist told law enforcement officials that Chambers was creating drug addicts, according to a news release.

"It's an enormous problem and it's killing people," said Gary Davidson, a spokesman for the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities term such practices "pill mills."

Operation Scrip Writer was launched in 2005 after the overdose deaths of several of Chambers' patients and involved 10 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, Davidson said. The Port Orange investigation started seven months ago, involving local, state and federal law enforcement officials soon after Rahman moved to his office on 900 N. Swallowtail Drive, police said.

People in businesses surrounding Rahman's practice noticed an immediate increase in traffic soon after he moved in.

"You'd come in in the morning and there would be wall-to-wall people waiting," said Jeanie Horvath of Port Orange.

Rahman wasn't arrested but Port Orange police Chief Gerald Monahan said he expects that new avenues of investigation and prosecution will open as the material seized at Rahman's office and home at 4234 Chadsworth Lane in Port Orange is examined. He said hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of pills Rahman prescribed were circulated throughout Central Florida.

The volume of traffic around Rahman's office tipped off police, Monahan said.

"(It) was a lot more than ... a normal medical practice," he said.

Both investigations used confidential informants who went to the pain management clinics. Chambers' operations, both called "New Hope," were located at 2570 Enterprise Road in Orange City and 1403 Medical Plaza Drive in Sanford.

Informants visited Chambers' offices eight different times to test how easy it was to obtain a prescription, according to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office. In some cases, Chambers never examined the patients, or had his assistants carry out cursory exams that involved getting the patient's weight and blood pressure, police said. Another time Chambers wrote a prescription for a patient's grandmother who was having trouble sleeping even though he never examined the grandmother, police said.

Rahman, of Port Orange, was quoted in a story in Sunday's Daytona Beach News-Journal about a crackdown on pain clinics in which he expressed surprise that a recovering oxycodone addict said he was willing to prescribe any drugs she wanted.

Two months ago, he told a News-Journal reporter his Port Orange medical practice aimed to get people off of pain management medicines whenever possible.

"I'm a beautiful man in my heart," he said. "I do help (people) -- and God knows I do help. Nobody can buy me."

But papers filed by the state Health Department filed Monday to yank his medical license tell another story.

The informant who visited Rahman's clinic brought a print of a magnetic resonance image (MRI) without an official letterhead or a doctor's signature, state record show. The print showed there was no evidence of injury or pain, except for some mild osteoarthritis. Without a prescription history, the patient was able to get a prescription for Lortab, which is a controlled substance used to treat pain, and a muscle relaxant, records show.

The informant gave Rahman $200, which he put in his pants pocket, according to state records. The examination was over after Dr. Rahman listened to the informant's chest and abdomen with a stethoscope and took his blood pressure, according to the records.

"Dr. Rahman is a danger to the public safety," the emergency suspension order reads.

Seated in his waiting room Tuesday while law enforcement searched his office and seized his BMW, Rahman said, "I have nothing to say."